The Bones, and the Cold, and the Bears. Oh My!

Well it has been quite the week here in Praha! Here are some of the major happeneings...

-Alana had her 21st birthday so we went out and celebrated on Sunday. It included a tasty dinner, a disgusting shot (which I intend to bring back to the US), and finally alot of dancing!

-I went to coffee with a random Czech connection. Ready for the tree here? My friend Kaitlyn, her stepdad Jerry, his friend Lin, his stepdaughter Draza. Did everyone follow that? I met Draza last week for coffee. She is 33 and lives here in Prague with her 4 year old daughter and her husband. I was put in contact with her through Jerry and his friend Lin. She is very nice and agreed to meet with me. She brought along her mother and daughter. She was pretty adorable. Her husband came and met us later. They were all very nice and it was fun to meet with some local people. They also asked me if I would be interested in a weekend in the countryside with them!

-I had my first midterm on Friday. I think it went pretty well. I have another one tomorrow and then I have a paper due on Thursday. Fun times lie ahead! But midterms means its almost midterm break. And midterm break means time for TRAVELLING!!!

-The heat in our apartment was finally turned on! On Wednesday at noon it was 39 degrees farenheit here in Prague. At that same time it was 3am in Seattle and it was 48 degrees farenheit. I have the weather on my desktop so I know I'm not exaggerating! It was cold last week! It also sleeted a little bit. Everyone was calling it snow, but being a true Seattleite I know the difference between snow, sleet, rain mixed with snow, and snow mixed with rain. It was a decent sleet or a snow mixed with rain. But we survived are in the high 40's and low 50's this week.

The other events of this weekend are a little bit bigger...

On Friday (after my midterm) I hopped on a train and headed out to Kuntá Hora. This is a small town 72km east of Prague. What is Kutná Hora's claim to fame? The Bone Church. What the heck is a 'bone church'? It is a small church that is completely decorated with bones. Human bones in fact! It was incredible! There were bones everywhere and all of them were incorporated into statues of some kind. And the focal point of the whole place was the chandelier that hung from the center of the room. It was stunning in a weird, morbid, creepy sort of way. The town itself was not that amazing. It was very cold outside and we could not figure out the public transportation. But we were able to wander towards town and then find a small restaurant to eat dinner in. Then, even in the cold, we stuck to my goal of having zmrzlina (ice cream) in every city I go to. I have to test them all out and see who has the best! So far I think Krakow is the winner, but the journey is far from over. There is still much ice cream to be had! After our ice creams we headed back to the train station and got back into Prague.

On Saturday our program took us to Český Krumlov. This is a small town in southern Bohemia. It was a very cute town. They took us on a tour of the castle which was nice. The coolest part about the tour? In about every room there was at least one, if not more, bear rugs. Full bears. I really wanted to bring one home, and they kind of reminded me of the animal skins that Grandma and Grandpa used to have down at the beach house. But bigger and bears and still had their heads. And their eyes which was a little creepy, but cool. Little did I know that it is likely these bear rugs came from the bear pits on the castle grounds! In the 16th century the Rožmberk family decided to put a family of European brown bears on the castle grounds and today you can still see the bears in their bear pit! I was not lucky enough to see these bears, but rest assured I did try! The rest of the day in Český Krumlov was spent having lunch and wandering the small town. It was gorgeous and full of very cute little shops. We played at some playground. We took alot of pictures of random things. We just had a fun time wandering aimlessly. Definately a fun trip.

That essentially covers this past week in a nutshell. I am very excited for the upcoming week. My roommate Katie and I have some exciting travel plans. Want to know where? What fun is it if I just tell you? You can guess, but here is a hint- we are heading west. Oooh the possibilities! I am even more excited because a week from Thursday I will be hanging out with my sister and cousin in Germany! Stay tuned for Three Fraine's taking on Europe! Watch out!